A Lover on the Left, a Sinner on the Right
by jennifermorisons
Summary: After the death of his mother, Bash's father insists on taking him in. Going from dirt poor to filthy rich overnight (and trading in East Harlem for the Upper East Side) is difficult enough as it is, but throw in a stepmother who hates him, a kind hearted half brother, and a knockout of a girl dating that same brother, and he's well and truly fucked. Modern AU.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: I'd like to blame this entire thing on Shannon for giving me the dumb idea of modern era Mabastian in some shady bar in a bad part of town and then blame her even further for encouraging me. **

It was funny - being called a bastard had never hurt quite as much as a child as it did when he was a grown man.

Funny, but Bash wasn't laughing.

Hearing voices coming from his father's room, he flattened himself against the wall next to the open doorway, hoping they hadn't seen him just yet.

"-will not have that _bastard_ in my home!" Came the hissing whisper yell of his step mother Catherine. His face betrayed nothing, but it didn't matter; there was no one to have seen the pain in his eyes anyway. Henry was trying to calm her down, but the voices kept rising until the two of them were yelling back and forth, hurling spiteful words at one another like arrows. He'd known his father's marriage wasn't a happy one, but Bash hadn't expected…well…this. Whenever Henry had come to visit his oldest - and very illegitimate son - he'd been nothing but kind and playful, amicable and loving, and he and Bash's mother Diane never looked at one another with anything but love in their eyes. Maybe a little sadness, too, now that he thought of it. But then again, hindsight was always 20/20, wasn't it?

Bash was pulled from his thoughts when he heard something shatter in the room behind him. Briefly he thought of knocking on the doorframe and making his presence known in the hope that it would stop the argument, but when Catherine called him a filthy, poisonous reminder of everything wrong in the world, he stayed his hand. Henry's roar of 'enough!' nearly shook the mansion with its power, and Bash winced, nearly shrinking away at that. He'd never heard his father yell like that before. It was so deafening that he nearly missed the next words out of Henry's mouth, so deadly quiet were they.

"Sebastian is just as much my son as Francis. He stays, Catherine."

"He's a grown man, for Christ's sake, Henry! I'm sure he would be more than capable on his own somewhere. Just because his whore of a mother-"

She was cut off by the sound of a slap.

Bash didn't stick around to hear the rest.

He slunk back to the bedroom Henry had called his, the bedroom that felt nothing like home at all, and shut the door silently behind him. It was warmer in there than the rest of the house - courtesy of its own personal thermostat - and he sighed with something caught between contentment and regret as he fell onto the bed. It was softer than anything he'd ever slept on in his life. Bash hated it. There was no support for his back, the sheets were all the wrong color…it felt nothing like him. Nothing in the room did, and while he supposed he should have just chalked it up to the fact that he'd only been there for less than a week, it was hard not to blame it on the usual residents of the Valois mansion. After all, Sebastian Poitiers - more commonly known as Bash - was no blue blooded Valois. He was just a kid from East Harlem, a bastard product of an affair who didn't belong on the Upper East Side, no matter what his father said. Not for the first time, he wished his mother were here. Then again, if she were, he wouldn't be here either. They'd be back at home in their shitty, run down apartment, she'd be cooking something terrible but filling, he'd be bouncing a tennis ball against the window in his room that opened up to a rusty fire escape, and they'd be happy. And most importantly, Diane would still be alive.

Thinking about the cancer that had taken his mother less than a month ago probably wasn't his smartest idea, but it seemed like the only thing he could think about now. Images of watching his mother waste away on her bed after refusing treatment started to flash through his head so rapidly that if he had been standing, Bash was sure it would have brought him to his knees. He felt like he couldn't breathe, like the walls of the room were closing in on him - never mind the fact that this room was easily ten times the size of the room he'd grown up calling his own. He had to get out of there. Taking a deep breath and struggling to gain his composure, he lurched off the bed with some difficulty, cursing the outlandishly squishy mattress as he did so. His old bed had been hard as a rock, but at least he could hop out of it without looking like he was swimming through molasses.

He was already throwing open his door, determined to make a break for it, take his old beat up car and drive somewhere - anywhere - to get away from this place, when he heard his name being called from the bottom of the stairs.

"Bash! Bash, are you home? There's someone I'd like you to meet!"

It was Francis, his half brother, and Bash stood dumbly in the hallway for ten full seconds as he wondered whether it'd be smarter just to turn around and dive back onto that godforsaken too soft bed. It wasn't that he didn't like Francis - quite the contrary, really; he enjoyed his brother's company more than he had initially expected to - but the idea of meeting anyone in the state he was sounded like an explosion waiting to happen. So he continued to stand there, refusing to move. Maybe if he didn't move, no one would remember he existed. He could spend the rest of his life in that hallway. But then Francis called his name again, a little more hopefully this time, and Bash could just _see_ the pleading look in his eyes. "Fuck," he muttered under his breath, sighing heavily and heading down the stairs.

It was funny how he'd only been a big brother for five days, yet he was taking his job as seriously as a two year old charged with the task. He barely even knew Francis, for all the bonding the blonde had tried to get in during the past few days, and yet here he was, already at the kid's beck and call, with an unwillingness to let him down. Truly, he was royally fucked.

"What is it?" He drawled, heading down the stairs with a laziness that only a curving double staircase could inspire. His boots echoed in the damn entryway, and not for the first time, Bash found himself wondering just how much space three - four, his mind reminded him, there were four residents of the house now - people needed. It all seemed a little excessive, if you asked him. No one ever asked him, of course, but it didn't hurt to think it.

"Finally," Francis was calling, pulling him out of his thoughts as he turned yet another corner of the staircase, putting the top of his half brother's head into view. "I was beginning to think you'd gotten lost up there."

"It's a lot of house to get lost in, brother," he shot back, a mild smile settling onto his lips and joviality entering his tone. "You can't tell me you've never gotten lost in here, can you?"

"I guess not," Francis admitted with a self depreciating smile right as Bash stepped off the stairs. Smiling at his brother though the motion didn't quite reach his eyes - it never did these days anyway - he inclined his head in victory.

"My point exactly," he informed Francis, turning slightly to get a look at whoever it was his little brother was insisting on introducing him to.  
And that, it turned out, was the worst mistake of his life.

The girl in question was a slight brunette, tiny by his standards, with an impossibly small waist and equally as impossibly large eyes. She looked like a doe standing there in the marble tiled entryway, some sort of pretty sundress on that he found - somewhere in the back of his mind - matched the color of his eyes almost exactly. The same color as Francis' eyes, too, but his younger brother was the last thing on his mind as he stared at the beautiful girl in front of him. She looked the way sunshine felt, and the moment their eyes met, Bash knew he was hopelessly and utterly lost.

"Mary, this is my brother, Sebastian," Francis said. Bash was dimly aware that the tone Francis was using implied the two of them had spoken of him before. He was even more aware that he didn't quite care what it was his brother was saying after he'd uttered the girl's name. Mary. "Bash, this is Mary Stuart, my girlfriend," he finished.

And just like that, his world stopped spinning.

In retrospect, he should have expected that. After all, the rug had been pulled out from under him so many times in the past twenty three years of his life that Bash was far more accustomed to being let down at this point than anything else. So he grit his teeth, adopted yet another mild smile, and reached forward to extend his hand to Mary. She took it with a gentle touch, but when she shook his hand, her grip was firm and unyielding. He liked that so much more than he should have, but he shook her hand all the same.

"It's lovely to meet you, Sebastian. Francis has told me so much about you," she said with a smile. He found himself envying the way it reached her eyes, and the little dimples in her cheeks that touched her skin in a way he couldn't. In the same train of thought, he found himself wondering when he'd become so sentimental.

"My stepmother calls me Sebastian," he told her, glad that his voice maintained its normal smooth and trifling tone. "The people I like call me Bash."

Mary blinked at him twice in succession before another smile broke out on her face. "Bash it is, then."

Heaven help him, he realized suddenly as he let go of her hand with his own quick quirk of his lips. He was absolutely done for.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Honestly, the response to this fic was so much more positive than I ever expected it to be, and the traffic has been nothing short of amazing. I hope you all enjoy this chapter as much as the first, and I'll do my best to get up the rest of their little lunch outing as soon as possible! :)**

He didn't know how long he stood there in front of Mary and Francis before he remembered to let go of her hand, giving her a quick and embarrassed smile as he did so. The look in her eyes nearly screamed 'it's alright', and he wasn't sure to handle the odd kindness radiating off of this girl in waves.

"So, ah...if that's all?" He asked after a beat, quirking an eyebrow at Francis. He might as well have shot fireworks into the sky to spell out his need to run away and get out of there. Any longer around this pretty girl named Mary and he might lose his head. He needed a minute to clear his mind and remind himself just how off limits she was, and he couldn't do that with her standing right in front of him.

"Actually," Francis started, and Bash nearly groaned aloud, "we were thinking of going to get some lunch, and we were hoping you might join us, Bash. We could take a walk, even, get you...what was that word you used?" The last half of his sentence was directed clearly at Mary. Francis even lowered his voice a touch, as though it might make Bash a little less uncomfortable. He wasn't sure if it was meant to be considerate or insulting.

"Acclimated," Mary supplied helpfully, smiling at Bash once more. "We thought a walk around might help you get acclimated to the area in a way a car ride might not."

He wondered how much of that thought belonged to the two of them, but Bash didn't have much time to think about it. A door slammed somewhere behind them and Mary winced, her eyes squeezing shut for a moment before opening nearly twice as wide as before to stare up at the parts of the hallway they could see from where they stood. Francis cast a worried glance at his brother, while Bash nearly refused to make eye contact.

"Are they fighting again?" Francis asked in an undertone, and Bash was dimly aware that Mary was now watching him with something in her eyes that was a little too close to concern for his liking. Was there anything his brother hadn't told this girl about him? He'd probably been made out to be some sort of charity case: poor boy with no mother and nowhere to go. It wasn't like he didn't have money of his own. Sure, maybe not as much as the Valois family - nowhere near as much as the Valois family - but that didn't mean he was broke, either. He'd been working at a mechanic's for six years, and it was enough to scrape by. He was twenty three, for Christ's sake. Bash could have easily found an apartment back in East Harlem and lived his life by himself after his mother's funeral. But his father had insisted, and when Diane's will was read and it was explicitly stated that she wanted Henry to take Bash in...well...he could have found an apartment on his own without trouble. But the thought of disappointing his mother had led him here, and now Bash was wondering just how much of a mistake he'd made.

"Bash?" Francis asked, and suddenly Bash was conscious of the fact that he was glaring at nothing, his teeth gritted, and forced himself to snap out of it. It wasn't Francis's fault, after all. And while Bash could be jealous of his younger brother for a thousand other reasons or angry at him for a dozen more, he couldn't blame him for anything. Francis had been nothing but overjoyed to have him around, almost more so than Henry had. No, Bash couldn't blame him for any of this even if he wanted to.

"It's nothing," he finally sighed, rubbing a hand over his face and then dropping it to his chest, where he lazily scratched just under the collar of his tee shirt. He needed to convey an image of nonchalance, or this would be something Francis tried to talk to their father about, and Bash didn't need to have lived with the Valois family all his life to know that Francis taking an issue up with Henry was out of the question. "They've been fighting most of the morning," he conceded a moment later, though he kept speaking as soon as Francis started to open his mouth. "But like I said, Francis, it's nothing. It'll blow over in a couple hours, I'm sure. Now, about that walk..."

He trailed off expectantly, waiting for one of them to jump in. When they didn't, his eyes bounced from Francis's to Mary's, and he realized his mistake as soon as his gaze locked with hers.

The pity in her eyes was absolutely overwhelming, and the embarrassment it evoked in him was horrific. He didn't want to be pitied.

Shifting his weight from foot to foot uncomfortably, Bash cast a look at Francis that was both embarrassed and pleading; had Mary not been standing there, and maybe if he'd grown up with Francis instead of on his own, he might have verbally begged his brother to get him out of there. As it was, a silent cry for help was all his dignity would allow him to muster. Thankfully, Francis got the message, and he grabbed Mary's hand quickly. While that hadn't been what Bash had been aiming for, he refused to allow himself to get jealous over a girl he'd just met. Especially not when she'd obviously been dating his brother for a long time.

"Right. The walk," Francis said with false cheer, all but dragging Mary out of the house. She glanced over her shoulder at Bash as they all headed for the door, and he felt his embarrassment spike again. He wouldn't make eye contact this time, but he could feel her gaze burning a hole in him. Bash wondered - not for the first time - just how much of a charity case his little brother had made him out to be. Or maybe Mary had just assumed; after all, blue bloods never seemed to understand blue collars, did they?

Rubbing the back of his neck, he ducked his head as the three of them hurried out of the mansion just as more screaming could be heard. Mary was wincing again, and when Francis looked at her with concern, Bash began to wonder just what weight her reaction held. Filing her body language away for a later time, he found himself studying the Stuart girl as they walked, but only when she wasn't watching. Francis was listing off landmarks as they went, pointing out this good restaurant or that awful cafe, and though Bash nodded as if he were listening, his main focus was on Mary. She was quiet the whole time, and something about that struck Bash as odd. She didn't seem like the quiet type to him, and he began to wonder just what it was that was holding her tongue. So when Francis mentioned that the cafe they were passing was his favorite place in the city, Bash seized the opportunity without thinking.

"What about you, Mary? What's _your_ favorite place?" He asked, trying for charming and raising his eyebrows a fraction of an inch upwards.  
He seemed to have caught her off guard, because she blinked at him for a moment before looking to Francis, as though expecting him to answer for her. Or cut her off, a small voice in the back of his head suggested, though Bash didn't pay it much mind. He might not know his half brother as well as he'd like to just yet, but Francis didn't strike him as the domineering boyfriend.

"The Carl Shurz Park," she finally told him, a faint smile crossing her lips. "It's the best place to think in this city."

"Not Central?" He asked, purposefully teasing her, never mind that he'd never been to either of the parks in question.

Francis laughed at that, obviously knowing what Mary was about to say, and her smile grew. Bash found himself grinning as well as he watched her react to the question. Her expression made it obvious she had something to say on the matter.

So when her answer was simple and understandable, he found himself surprised, and a little disappointed.

"There's too many people in Central Park. It's bigger, sure, and very nice, but...too many people. Too loud. Sterling doesn't like crowds all that much, either," she said, and when he raised an eyebrow, she hurriedly explained herself. "My dog, Sterling. I like to take him on walks, and Shurz is so much better for that, I think."

"Ahh," was all Bash said in reply, and he clasped his hands behind him as they continued to walk.

He wasn't sure if Mary was aware of his gaze on her after that, but her walking was a little stiffer than it had been before, her body language just as closed off as it'd been after they were introduced, and he continued to wonder what it was that was bothering her. He found it nearly all consuming, and while he should have been taking advantage of their shared knowledge of the city, he wasn't paying any attention to his half brother at all, and mainly wondered what this park was like, that made Mary love it so much. He wondered what kind of dog Sterling was, and why she needed to go somewhere to be able to think, but mainly, he wondered why he suddenly cared so much.

"Here we are!" Francis cried suddenly, and Bash nearly jumped. He was a little pleased to see Mary startle as well - maybe he wasn't the only one wrapped up in thought. Tearing his eyes away from her, he glanced up at the sign - JG Melon.

If that didn't sound pretentious as all ever loving fuck, Bash didn't know what did.

The place was crowded past the point of comfort, with loud noises and people wrinkling their noses at him as they passed by, as though they could smell the 'poor' coming off of him in waves. It smelled fantastic, he had to give it that, but the look the host gave him, complete with a whole once over of what he was wearing, left a bad taste in his mouth. Was this going to be his life from now on?

Shuddering at the thought, Bash let Francis do all the talking. The host seemed to know him and was all smiles, which made Bash roll his eyes. Of course Francis was buddy-buddy with the asshole wait staff here. Mary shot him a sympathetic look that he almost didn't catch, but he shook his head almost imperceptibly, not wanting her to think he was taking it personally, even if he was. They were ushered into the only remaining table left in the place, the three of them crowded around a space that was clearly only meant for one person - two maximum. His arm was brushing against Mary every time she shifted in her seat, and it was, perhaps, the most distracting thing he'd ever experienced in all his twenty three years.

The menu, however, was enough to jolt him out of the feel of her skin against the beaten leather of his jacket.

Everything was so damn expensive that he nearly got up and walked out then and there. The price of a burger was ridiculous enough as it was, but what self respecting burger joint sold champagne on the menu? Given the crowd the place had drawn, he probably shouldn't have been surprised, but Bash couldn't justify spending a hundred and seventy five dollars on something to drink. Not surprisingly, when the waiter came by, Francis ordered wine - something Bash couldn't pronounce that ended up being upwards of fifty dollars - and he would have laughed at his brother if they hadn't been in public. Mary's order of mineral water came as no surprise to him, though spending nearly four dollars on water would have given him a heart attack. He settled for the cheapest beer they had on tap, knowing he'd actually enjoy it. He enjoyed Francis's scandalized look even more.

"You can't eat a JG Melon burger with a Budweiser, Bash," he groaned good naturedly, and Bash grinned at his brother, crossing his legs with an exaggerated motion and leaning back in his chair.

"Watch me, brother," he teased, drawing a chuckle out of Mary. He'd be riding that high of victory for weeks, he could feel it.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Sorry this took so long, you guys! Real life caught up with me in the form of a cold, but y'all have been so supportive and lovely about this fic that I couldn't stay away from it for too long. Hope everyone continues to like it as much as you have been, and as much as I love writing it!**

Three minutes into the lunch, he found out what kind of dog Sterling was.

Mary obliged him when he finally found it in him to ask out of the corner of his mouth while pretending to look at the menu. Francis was studying it with intensity, but Mary looked up instantly at the sound of Bash's quiet query, as though she was already attuned to the sound of his voice.

"Would you like to see?" She asked him just as softly, a small smile playing on her rosy lips.

Half expecting her to whip out a dog from the folds of her dainty sundress, he nodded, dumbfounded. He felt stupid when she slid a thin smartphone from a hidden pocket in her skirt. Her thumb flew over the surface of the thing, keying in a password that he tracked unconsciously. 1023. The numbers didn't mean anything to him, but the tiny bit of burning shame of invading her privacy - however accidentally - burned in his nervous system. He hoped the numbers would fade from his memory.

Her phone's background wasn't a picture of Francis. He didn't know why that surprised him. Instead, it was a picture of a landscape, something she'd obviously taken herself, but he didn't recognize the place. It was far too green for New York, at any rate. The next thing he knew, she was calling up a picture gallery and scrolling through photos so fast it nearly made his head spin. Mary leaned in a little closer, their menus braced against the table, and smiled proudly down at her screen.

"There he is," she told him, gracing him with that same proud smile, and god...it was like he'd never seen the sun shine until that very moment.

He must have looked as awestruck as he felt, because she blinked, hesitating.

"Bash?" She asked, her eyebrows raising expectantly, and he shook his head to jolt himself out of it.

"Beautiful," he responded without thinking. Later, he'd thank god he had the good sense to look down at her phone before the last syllable left his lips. Later, he'd wonder what her expression had been when he'd spoken. He was too nervous to look up as he cleared his throat, seemingly intent on studying the picture of the dog on her phone. "He's beautiful. Is he purebred?"

"Actually, I'm not entirely sure what he is," Mary admitted fondly, swiping her thumb delicately across the screen to reveal another picture of the dog, and then another. "I found him when I was six, just wandering around my mom's neighborhood. We put up posters, but we never found his owner. He was just a puppy, and when we couldn't find anyone to claim him...Mom let me keep him," she said with a soft curve of her lips. "I've always had a thing for strays."

"Well aren't you just a regular Mother Theresa," he teased her gently, enjoying the flush that rose on her cheeks and spread to her neck. She shook her head and nudged him with her shoulder, though he wasn't sure how deliberate the motion was. Her arm had come out to put her phone away, and with the lack of space they both had, Bash felt it best not to assume.

Still, her shoulder burned where she'd touched him.

That was when Francis cut in, his blonde curls peeking over his own menu as he leaned across the table. "Are you two sharing secrets? Mary, don't you dare go telling him embarrassing stories about my childhood without giving me a chance to defend myself!"

His words were goodnatured and his tone jovial, but Bash couldn't help but feel the sting of guilt at them. He was supposed to be here for his brother, and here he was, flirting with his brother's girlfriend behind a laminated menu. He also felt a pang of regret as Mary laughed, taunting him with some absurd nickname that could have belonged to Francis or a stuffed animal at one point; it was anyone's guess. That should have been him, teasing his brother with embarrassing childhood memories. He'd been cheated out of so much with his illegitimate birth, Bash realized, and he had a feeling he might never make up for so much lost time. It was a sobering thought.

"Anyway," Mary was saying, her voice still full of laughter, "I was just helping Bash with the menu. Really, Francis, we ought to have brought him somewhere a little less...well, _your_ speed." She was clearly teasing, but the bite was soft and with good intentions, and directed at Francis rather than himself. The fact that Mary was in his corner - for the moment, at least - was heartening. And when she smiled at him again, a mischievous twinkle in her eye, he realized she'd lied.

It looked like they _were_ sharing secrets after all.

The waiter came by again before he could back her up, dropping off their drinks and taking their food orders rapidly. Francis ordered a steak, much to Bash's chagrin, while the elder brother picked the simplest looking burger on the menu. Mary, for her part, ordered something Bash couldn't figure out, something something mozzarella. Apparently his confusion was written all over his face, because Francis laughed and leaned forward, handing their menus to the waiter without a second thought.

"It's a sort of sandwich, Bash," he explained with a grin, adjusting his position on his seat and taking a sip of his wine. He gestured with his glass as he spoke, and for a minute there he was the spitting image of his mother. It was unnerving, to say the least. "They pack it with cheese, fry it on a pan...it's ridiculously unhealthy but Mary adores them."

Mary's smug smile made it clear she had no shame as she nodded, crossing her legs with satisfaction written into her bone structure. Bash had never seen something more beautiful, and for some reason the revelation made him laugh. And once he started, both of his companions joined him pretty quickly. They turned almost every head in the restaurant from their raucous laughter, but they couldn't be bothered for the moment. The three of them deserved some peace in their lives, after all. Shaking his head and running a hand over his face, Bash braced an elbow on the table and took a swig of his beer, still chuckling under his breath.

"Mary," he said suddenly, and the dark haired girl - still giggling - turned to him with a breathless smile, a question in her eyes. "Where are you from?" She started to explain where she lived in relation to Francis, but Bash waved a hand to cut her off. "I meant originally. You don't sound like you're from Manhattan." Francis raised an eyebrow at that, and when Mary paused, Bash blinked back at both of them. "What?"

"You noticed," Mary said simply, her fingers curled around the bottle of her mineral water. There was no accusation in her tone, simply observation. "Not many people notice anymore."

"Was I not supposed to?" He asked, almost worriedly, though he worked hard to keep his expression as neutral as possible.

"No, no, that's not it," Mary hurriedly assured him, her gaze darting to Francis once before returning to Bash. "I'm from Scotland. That's where my mother lives, still. It's just not something I talk about often, and I've lived here for so long that...well, Scotland's just a place I visit now," she shrugged, leaning back in her chair as if that was that. Something told him there was more to the story, though - whether it was the faraway look in her eyes or the cloud over her expression, he wasn't sure - and while he nodded, he resolved to ask Francis about it later. If Mary didn't care to talk about it, he wouldn't press, but Francis wasn't likely to have that same reservation.

"Never been to Scotland, myself," he said breezily, trying to lighten the conversation once more. He rested one ankle on his knee with an exaggerated movement, taking up far more space than he was allotted, and crowded Francis and Mary, the former of whom rolled his eyes. "Never been out of Harlem, actually, until this week."

"How was that, by the way?" Francis asked suddenly, taking another sip of his wine and leaving Bash on the spot. "Growing up on your own, I mean. We've talked about my life so much this past week that I feel like I still barely know you, Bash."

Now it was Bash's turn to hesitate, thankfully prolonged by the arrival of their food. By the time his burger was in front of him, he was hoping Francis would have forgot the question, but his brother was still looking at him expectantly, and Bash sighed, fiddling with a fry between his fingertips and trying to find the right words. "I wasn't on my own," he sighed, more to himself than his companions, but Mary's expression made it clear he'd been heard. "It wasn't like a fairy tale, that's for sure," Bash finally said, looking back up from his plate and schooling his features back into their default mild mannered expression. "Our neighborhood wasn't the best, the apartment was always cold in the winter and hot in the summer, the hallway to the stairs had a leak...but there was always something hot on the stove and someone to come home to. I don't know, we just...made due. And dad-" he started, before Francis's pinched expression made him think better of it.

"Should have done more," Francis finished for him.

"Did the best he could," Bash corrected, not unkindly.

They lapsed into silence then, and Bash finally took a bite of his burger. He had to admit that it was one of the best he'd ever tasted; but that didn't make it worth the hoops he'd had to jump through to get it. He was three more bites in before conversation started up again, with Mary asking him what he was studying. He nearly choked on his mouthful at that; obviously Francis hadn't told her. Wiping his mouth deliberately slowly and swallowing thickly, he took a long drag of his beer before answering as nonchalantly as possible.

"I took a couple years off," he started, shrugging a shoulder and taking another drink. "Never started, actually. Didn't see the point in it."

"Didn't see the point? But-" Mary started, and Bash shrugged again, looking away. She seemed to understand what he wasn't saying, then, because she paused, her 'oh' barely audible. There was an awkward beat of silence before she spoke again, so much cheer in her voice that it could be nothing but fake. "Francis is studying business, you know. Harvard," she added, wincing as soon as the last word left her mouth, as though she'd realized her mistake a heartbeat too late.

"I know," he said without malice, quirking his lips up gently at her and tipping his glass in his half brother's direction. "You start again...what, three weeks?"

"Two," Francis corrected, smiling back at his brother. "Still time to register for the spring semester, you know," he urged quietly, but Bash pretended not to have heard.

"What about you, Mary? What are you studying over at the big H?" He paused for a moment, a stupid grin on his face. "Do people even call it that?"

Francis and Mary burst into laughter, shaking their heads almost in unison.

"Nope."

"I didn't think so."

"I'm at Dartmouth, actually. _I_ start in three weeks," she told him. "And I'm double majoring in English and Childhood Development. Hopefully I'll end up teaching," Mary said, as though it wasn't impressive.

Bash, however, was very impressed, and wondering how it was Francis didn't look the same. "I'm told that's an honorable calling," he said by way of congratulations, and she ducked her head.

"Doesn't pay very well," was all she replied with, and he wondered why someone so blue blooded as Mary Stuart would care about something as trivial as money. The more he talked to this girl with the faintest hint of a brogue in her voice, the more he realized there was so much lurking beneath the surface of her genuine smile, and the more he realized he wanted to learn it all.

"Well, as long as you get this one to keep paying for your meals, you're in good shape," he teased with a grin, jerking a thumb at Francis, and drew another laugh from Mary for his trouble.

He had three weeks before she went off to school. More than enough time to learn all there was to know about this girl. Bash should have thought about his brother, he knew, but sitting in that pretentious diner with a mouthful of overpriced beer, Francis was the furthest thing from a priority. Guilt was sure to start creeping up on him, but for the moment, he could leave it be in favor of watching Mary laugh.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: I'm so sorry this took so long to reach you guys! All I can say is that working retail in the holiday season is ten times more exhausting than you expect it to be, and that I hope you guys like the latest update! I promise the next one won't take nearly as long. Thank you guys for sticking with me through that mini hiatus, and here's...well, here's Bash making an idiot of himself. Again.**

By the time he got home that night - because apparently the Valois home was now his as well - Bash was exhausted. It was nearly ten in the evening, and while on any other day, Bash would have just been getting started, something about today had drained every bit of energy from him. Maybe it was constantly having to keep his eyes from drawing to Mary, or maybe it was just the fact that he'd been dragged up and down the richest parts of the city, and the sheer display of opulence was nearly making him sick. When he and Francis stepped back inside the house, Catherine was sitting in the living room, her back straight against one of the fancy chairs that couldn't possibly comfortable. She had a glass of scotch in her hand, and from the look of the bottle in front of her, it wasn't her first. Their father was nowhere to be seen, and Bash thought it was best if he got the hell out of there before Catherine noticed him. The boys clambered up the stairs as fast as they could, ignoring Catherine's call to Francis. The stomping and near sprinting took Bash back to when he was a kid, running up and down his fire escape with a daredevil attitude. He wondered what it would have been like to run up and down these stairs instead, with Francis running next to him. The thought made his chest hollow. Francis was grinning when they reached the top, and Bash forced himself to muster a smile in response. Maybe if he kept smiling, it could make this place feel like home; make Francis feel like the brother he always wanted, like the brother he was.

The idea nearly made Bash shudder. He hadn't even been there a month, and here he was, already thinking like a rich boy: pretend the problems aren't there until they go away. He didn't know when the Valois family had started to change him from the dirty Harlem boy he used to be, but he didn't like the idea that he was changing at all. He'd always liked who he was.

Nearly pushing past Francis with a mutter that he was tired, Bash headed into the room they'd all deemed as his, finding his things quickly. The dresser had twelve drawers, not to mention the closet space he had. Everything he'd ever owned in his entire life fit in two drawers, and half of one medicine cabinet in the bathroom he shared with Francis. It was jarring, and made him even more uncomfortable than he'd already been. Dragging a hand down his face, Bash changed into a pair of pajama pants he'd owned since he was eighteen. They were an inch and a half too short, but he compensated by wearing them an inch lower than they should have been. That was something Francis would never understand, he realized with an internal sigh - how to make due with what you had, how to compensate for losing one thing by adjusting another. It was a careful balance that Bash had always walked the line of, a balance that Francis would never have to make due with.

The thought could have made him bitter. Bash wished he could be bitter. It might have made things easier for him, living in this house with these people. But all it really did was make him tired.

He tugged off his shirt before heading into the bathroom through the door next to his closet. He could already tell that he'd mix up the three doors in his room the moment he found himself depressed enough to get shitfaced drunk in this house. But sober as he was, that wasn't an issue just yet. So he fumbled for his toothbrush and the lights, carelessly loading the toothbrush up with toothpaste and sticking it into his mouth. He'd barely managed to make one flick of his wrist before Francis came in, reaching for his own toothbrush and taking the sink to Bash's left. The gestures were carelessly domestic, as though they'd been doing this as brothers all their lives. The hollow feeling in his chest was back. Huffing out a sigh through his nose, he kept brushing his teeth, but Francis paused, studying the toothpaste as though it was the most interesting thing in the world.

"So, what'd you think of Mary?" He finally asked, as though looking for Bash's approval.

It took him a moment to realize why; Francis might have his parents' approval of the girl he was dating, but as older brother, it was Bash's job to encourage his baby brother in his love life. The hollow feeling in his chest was getting worse, and he considered lying for a moment. Instead he pulled the toothbrush from his mouth and spat into the sink.

"She's nice," he said noncommittally, shoving the toothbrush back in his mouth before Francis asked another potentially damning question.

"Yeah," Francis agreed with a small smile. "She's always been like that. Caring," he said, as though searching for the word.

That wasn't the one Bash would have used. Beautiful. Awe-inspiring. Like no other girl he'd ever laid eyes on before. But he didn't say anything, just nodded in agreement.

Silence stretched between the brothers for a moment before Francis started brushing his own teeth, his brow furrowed, and Bash started to wonder what it was his brother really wanted to talk about. "How'd you meet her?" He finally asked Francis around a mouthful of toothpaste, the words garbled.

Now it was Francis's turn to hesitate and spit into the sink. "We were kids...little kids," he explained slowly, his eyes faraway as he jammed the toothbrush between his teeth. "Her dad died," he went on, and Bash had to focus hard to make sense of the way Francis's words sounded around a toothbrush, "in a car accident in Scotland. Their company was-"

"Francis, I can't understand a damn word you're saying," Bash said with a smirk, finally rinsing his mouth out of the last of the minty foam and tossing his toothbrush into its cup. He was surprised it wasn't monogrammed, but figured he just needed to give Henry time before his father thought it'd be a good idea.

Laughing - and nearly choking on toothpaste in the process - Francis held up a hand and finished brushing his teeth so fast that Bash was surprised his gums weren't bleeding. When his little brother was finally done, the story continued.

"Mary's father was CEO of a company you've probably never heard of," he explained, wiping his face and examining his jaw in the mirror as he spoke. "Because it went under by the time I was four. He died in a car accident a year later, in Scotland. That's where Mary's from, you know."  
Bash nodded. He did know, and now he regretted asking Mary that question at lunch.

"Anyway, dad was friends with James, her father, and he'd offered James a spot at our company," Francis went on, "but James died before he could say yes or no. I think dad felt like he owed it to James...because the next thing I knew, Mary was coming to stay with us. Everyone said it was just temporary, that she'd be back in Scotland by the end of summer, but summer came and went, and she was going to kindergarten with me in the fall. She used to stay in the room two doors down from yours," he added conversationally.

Bash raised his eyebrows. He hadn't expected all of this. "So she's lived here all her life, then?" He asked slowly.

"Her mom bought her an apartment when she went into high school, as kind of a present. But the rent's high out here, and dad took it over pretty quickly. Mary - Mary's mother, I mean, they have the same name - didn't want her to find out, but..."

"But Mary's not stupid," Bash finished for him. He'd never got the impression of anything but a keen mind from Mary when he'd met her, and he suddenly realized that it was very likely she was just in debt to the Valois family as he was.

"Exactly. She doesn't like it, got a job pretty quickly when we were in high school, but dad didn't like the idea of her working. He felt like it was a stain on his generosity," Francis said, almost bitterly, and Bash nodded. That sounded like their father, making gratitude into something he was owed. "And Mary and I had been dating for a while by then, so eventually she just...stopped. She's going to Dartmouth on a shitload of scholarships, but dad's filling in the gaps for her." He sounded proud of his girlfriend. He would have been happy for his brother if the discussion of Mary's major hadn't rubbed him the wrong way so much. Bash wondered what it was about the idea of teaching that didn't appeal to Francis.

"So Mary's-" Bash started.

"Broke?" Francis supplied. "Completely. The only thing that really means anything anymore is her name, and her ties to our family."

"That's not what I was going to say," Bash muttered, though, when he thought about it for longer than a second, he wasn't entirely sure just what it was that he would have said. Francis continued on as though he hadn't heard his brother, and maybe he hadn't.

"Dad's promised to keep supporting her until after she graduates, but then she's on her own. I'm not sure how much of that is his idea, and how much is hers. But I know her mother's hoping we get married young so Mary doesn't ever have to worry about finances."

"Mary doesn't strike me as the kind of girl to worry about that sort of thing," Bash said slowly, and Francis nodded. Then another part of what he'd said stuck out to Bash - marriage. "And...how do you feel about that? Marrying her, I mean," he started.

Francis pulled a face that turned his handsome face into something ugly for all of a second. "Honestly?"

"No, brother, I asked because I want you to lie to me," Bash said lazily, leaning against the wall.

"I love her," Francis said, as though reassuring Bash, or himself. "I do. But marriage...we've been together for as long as I can remember. It shouldn't be too big of a jump, but it just feels - stifling."

Bash nodded slowly. He couldn't imagine someone like Mary being stifling, but he supposed being around any girl constantly for years might be that way. He wouldn't know, having always been more of a 'one night' kind of a guy. No one had ever seemed important enough to keep around.

"If I marry her, I'll never know what it is I might be missing," Francis finally said. "And besides, we're too young to think about that. I mean...marriage? _Children_? That's the furthest thing from my mind right now."

That, at least, Bash could agree with. But he still couldn't shake the idea that having Mary meant the absolute opposite of missing anything.

* * *

It took him hours to fall asleep that night, and only partially because of the horrifically overdone softness of his bed. Images of Mary were nearly haunting him as he imagined that poor child being shipped from Scotland to New York, leaving behind her mother and everything she'd ever known to live with a family she barely even knew. He couldn't believe that he'd even thought of her as just another blue blood, and the idea that he'd misjudged her on such a profound level nearly made him sick. Tossing and turning fitfully, Bash punched his pillow and wished for his hard bed back in Harlem, wished for that dank apartment he shared with his mother, wished for his _mother_, period. He never felt her loss as fully as he did in the dark of the night with no one and nothing to keep him company except his grief.

The idea that he was still mourning for his mother was nearly laughable to the side of himself he wanted to call sensible, but the child still locked up inside Bash was nearly sobbing over the idea that Diane was gone. He rolled back onto his back and wondered if it hadn't quite sunken in yet for him. He wondered whether or not that was something he could figure out in the dark of this unfamiliar bedroom, in the ridiculous soft bed that he hated so thoroughly. Nearly groaning, he rolled out of the bed. Even sleeping on the floor would be better than this. He was used to the floor. He wasn't used to luxury, and his body was rejecting it in a way that nearly surprised him. Dragging the blanket down with him, he pulled a pillow from the bed and tucked an arm under his head, staring at the ceiling with his free hand splayed on his stomach. When he was a kid, he used to imagine that one day his dad would walk in the door like he did every other weekend, but this time he'd have a car waiting to whisk Bash and Diane away. He used to imagine that they'd move in with Henry, that they'd finally be part of his family for real, not just in secret. He'd dream that he'd be able to meet his little brother, that he'd have his own room - just like this one, actually. That was before he was old enough to understand the concept of _reality_.

That was before he was old enough to know that a little brother and a soft bed aren't all they're cracked up to be.

Not for the first time, Bash wondered when it was his life had been turned so thoroughly upside down. Maybe if he could pinpoint the exact moment, he could go back and fix it, take himself back to a time when his mother was still alive and Harlem was still home. Or maybe he was just deluding himself. He fell asleep with thoughts of his mother and Catherine and Henry and Francis and Mary all muddled in his mind, Catherine screaming obscenities at him and Henry watching disapprovingly. Francis was watching Mary with the same look, though she couldn't see it from where she was staring out a window to nothing. He wondered what it was she was looking at, but before Bash could approach her, Diane was in front of him, trying to warn him of something.

"Take care," she was saying. "Take care, my brave son."

That wasn't right. Bash was many things, but Bash wasn't brave. But before he could ask his mother what she meant, before he could reach for her one last time, she was gone, and sunlight was streaming in through Bash's window, an alarm blaring at him and pulling him from sleep into reality. He jolted back to earth, his limbs flailing as he tried to remember where he was, and what that noise was that was screaming at him. It took him a minute to realize that it was his alarm, and he could turn it off.

_Great_, he thought to himself. _Cryptic dreams. That's all I needed_.

Slapping his palm against his alarm clock, Bash got up from the floor and stretched out his back. That was almost worse than sleeping in his bed. Almost. He changed quickly into a pair of sweatpants and a tee shirt, deciding to go for a run to try and clear his head. He'd always liked running, particularly when no one was chasing him, and it might be good for him to get into some sort of habit now that he was living somewhere unfamiliar. He'd need to find a new job soon, and going for a run sounded like the much more favorable option at the moment. In the bathroom, he brushed his teeth and did his best to fix his hair, which was sticking up in all directions from his tossing and turning on the floor. He considered asking Francis to go with him - after all, the door to his brother's bedroom was right there - but the silence coming from the other side of the door made him stop. If he invited Francis, that meant inviting more conversations like the one from last night. And while he was still eager to bond with his brother, for the moment, Bash wanted to be alone. So he left in silence, slipping out the front door and forgetting until he reached the curb that he didn't have a house key, and the door locked automatically behind him.

"Shit."

He stood there dumbly for a second before sighing. It couldn't be helped. And he didn't have his phone on him, though his wallet was tucked securely in his pocket. So for now he'd just have to get around on his own. He was fairly confident that he could find his way back there on his own. If not, well, it wasn't above his father to call the police. Bash smiled grimly. He'd figure it out. And with that, he set off at a jog, carefully avoiding people on the sidewalks for as long as he could. It didn't take him more than five minutes to realize this wasn't working, so he paused and lowered his pride just enough to slow down next to a small flower stall and ask the old woman managing it where he could find the nearest park. Not only did she give him directions, but supplied him with a map she drew hastily on the back of a takeout menu from under the counter. Bash thanked her and bought a daisy for a handful of change before heading off, checking the makeshift map against street names until he found the park she'd directed him to.

Carl Shurz. Go fucking figure.

Laughing to himself and shaking his head, Bash found the first running path and took off, finally able to go faster than just above a walk. There were a few other people running, and most of them had dogs with them, but there wasn't enough for it to be traffic, and if he kept his eyes on the trees or the sky, he could pretend that he was alone. It was freeing, and for once, he didn't feel like he was drowning in the city. His feet pounded against the gravel and the breeze hit his hair, cooling the sweat from his forehead. Each breath stabbed at his lungs, but Bash didn't mind. The exertion made him feel alive. He was just thinking that he could get used to this city if this was a normal part of his day when a dog barreled towards him, leash whipping behind it without an owner holding the other side. Normally, he would have let the dog go, but in this neighborhood, he was half convinced you could get sued just for looking at someone the wrong way, let alone letting their dog escape. So he slowed and dropped down to a crouch, reaching out and grabbing the dog by its collar. It sat nearly instantly, clearly well behaved but for that little streak of rebellion, and he scratched behind its ears, wondering why it looked so damn familiar.

"Sterling?! Sterling, come back!"

_Oh_. That's why.

Mary came running from around the corner, her hair swinging back and forth in a ponytail and her shorts barely covering the tops of her legs. Bash felt his jaw drop for a moment, and he forced himself into a hasty recovery, not wanting her to see. He rose quickly, moving his hand from Sterling's collar to his leash, right as Mary noticed just who it was that was holding her dog.

"Bash!" Her face lit up, though whether it was from seeing him, or seeing her dog safe, he couldn't tell. "I didn't think I'd see you again so quickly," she said breathlessly, slowing to a stop and crouching down to ruffle Sterling's ears, clapping her hands on either side of the dog's face to look at him Sterling. "You gotta stop scaring me like that," she chided, earning herself a lick on her chin. She laughed, and the sound was absolutely musical, and pained Bash somewhere between his chest and his stomach. "Thank you for grabbing him," Mary said suddenly, looking up at Bash with a smile. "I was worried I'd never catch up to him. I hope we didn't interrupt anything-"

"Nothing. Nothing at all. I was just going for a run," he explained quickly, rubbing the back of his neck and handing the leash back off to her.

"Oh, well so were we!" She exclaimed, as though there was some sort of fate at work there. Her voice seemed almost overly cheerful, though, and he wondered whether this was normal behavior for her, or something had driven her into it. He wondered about her a lot, he realized, though he had no idea how to stop doing that. Or even if he wanted to stop, now that he thought about it. "Do you want to join us?" Mary asked him, drawing him from his thoughts, and he nodded slowly.

"Sure, if you don't mind the company," he said, almost nervous, but Mary's face quickly put those nerves to rest.

"We'd _love_ the company. I'm always trying to get Francis to come with us, but he's more of a swimming guy," she informed him, setting off at a slow walk to make sure he was following her.

"Huh," he said, starting after her and catching her questioning look. "Swimming," he explained with a shrug. "I didn't expect that of him, I guess. It's weird, to have to be told things about your brother from other people rather than being the one to tell them." His explanation came out almost like word vomit; he had no idea why he was telling her that other than a sudden fleeting thought that she'd understand. And from her nod, it seemed like she did.

"You can always ask me, you know, if there's something you don't want to ask him," Mary offered casually, as though it wasn't a big deal. And it wasn't, to her, he knew. She'd lived with Francis her whole life. She knew all the things he should have known. And here she was, offering to share that wisdom and knowledge with him like it was nothing. He caught himself staring at her again, wondering just how it was that her life had shaped her to be the way she was, and how it was that Francis had gotten there first.

He wished again that he could be bitter about his life, wished that he could be bitter that he wasn't his father's "real" son, wished he could be bitter that Francis had gotten all the chances he'd never had. Chances to grow up as the heir to the Valois fortune and name, chances to be loved in the public eye instead of the private one. Chances with Mary. But it wasn't Francis's fault that he'd lived his life with everything handed to him on a silver platter, including the girl who seemed to be the girl of Bash's dreams. So Bash couldn't allow himself to be bitter and blame Francis for something he could help. But he wished he could, _god_, he wished he could.

Instead, he pulled the daisy from his pocket, where it had crumpled up a bit on a few petals, and held it out to her. "Bought it off a lady for directions to somewhere I could run," he explained with an almost shy smile. "May I?" She nodded, and he tucked it carefully into her ponytail, where it stood out in stark contrast to her dark hair. "There. Looks almost as good as it would have in my hair," he teased, and she grinned, her mouth opening as if in outrage, and her eyes sparkling.

"Cheeky bastard," she laughed, her brogue that much more prevalent at the decidedly-less-than-American term, and she pushed him gently with her shoulder.

"That's me," Bash said almost proudly, laughing along with her as they walked. Mary reached up to touch the daisy delicately, a smile lingering on her lips and making his chest swell with something - pride? Affection? He couldn't tell.

"Francis should watch out," she finally said, her tone light and joking. "I can't even remember the last time he gave me flowers. If he's not careful, you might just steal me right out from under his nose," she teased.

_If only_, he sighed internally.


End file.
